


TempusTale

by caneeljoy



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: (basically Frisk ages a year every time she RESETs), AU, Fem!Frisk, age au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-17
Updated: 2016-09-17
Packaged: 2018-08-15 11:00:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8053762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caneeljoy/pseuds/caneeljoy
Summary: She is seven years old when she falls for the first time.(AU where Frisk ages one year every time she RESETs.)(Fem!Frisk and angst.)





	TempusTale

The first time she falls, she is seven years old.

Sits up, looks around in awe. Familiar blue baggy shirt, two pink stripes. Chubby hands. She pats her face, her legs, brushes clumsy fingers over her eyelids.

 

The second time she falls, she is eight years old.

Game over. Everyone was happy, roll credits. Her world RESET without her permission.

She stands, slipping on yellow flowers, and runs towards her mother.

 

The third time she falls, she is nine years old. She cries.

She wants pie. She wants to sleep forever.

That time, she hides under her covers and refuses to leave. An insistent voice haunts her dreams and drags her again and again from sleep.

 

The fourth time, she ages another year.

The fifth time, another.

The sixth, seventh, eighth.

 

The tenth time she falls, her shirt is still baggy and three times as big.

She picks up a knife, sees it’s a toy. It cuts alright.

One monster crumbles to dust, a Froggit with surprised eyes - surprise, and then incredible sadness. Immediately, she drops the knife, falls shivering to the ground. She RESETs, gains another year and a valuable lesson.

 

Each RESET, another year. 

Her mom starts to act confused around her, as if remembering vaguely her years as a child. A few short years, many RESETs ago. Frisk misses those years.

Powers don’t make you immortal. Powers make you responsible - for the fates of everyone you love and care about.

 

Twenty years old. Thirty, thirty-five. Frisk starts to lose count, but the number lives somewhere in the back of her head.

Her shirt expands. Her pants grow as her legs grow. She starts to shed her shoes.

 

Many times she flirts with the idea of genocide. Why not, right? Nobody remembers. Nobody cares. It would be… easy, to kill and kill to forget. Frisk knows it would become like an addiction, can sense it somehow.

Every time, she turns away from the thought. She wouldn’t unleash her pain and fear on defenseless friends. Never. She’d die first.

 

Fifty, sixty. Her mind dulls with age. RESETs come, they come and go, taking another year of her life with them  
.  
The “adventure” becomes a chore, something she must do. She must fight Flowey, must free the monsters, must do it because she has to. 

Sometimes she is lazy. She puts it off. She waits until the curious stares of monsters become accusing and she feels like a stranger from another world.

 

Seventy. Seventy-five. It becomes harder to pick herself up off the flowers. Toriel’s bed becomes her solace. She lies there, staring at the ceiling, as home plays on repeat in her head.

Sans says nothing, but she knows. She knows he can see.

One time she falls, stumbles into the snow. She is old and tired.

He helps her to her feet and guides her back to his home. An emotion she can’t place radiates from him.

 

Eighty. Ninety.

She knows the emotion, now. It’s respect. He’s trying to be respectful of her.

Her half-delirious mind laughs at that. 

 

At this point, she doesn’t know where she is going. Muscle memory guides her through the puzzles, past conversations with monsters. She knows already what they will say. 

There is no point, she thinks. No point.

Still, she carries on. She thinks, I can free them one last time. One last time. Another time, again. I can do it, for them.

 

The number has vanished from her head. She knows it is impossibly high.

The flowers tickle the backs of her knees.

Tired.

She’s so tired.

She clenches her stomach muscles. Tries to sit up.

She can’t do it. She can’t. Too weak. Too old.

Too many RESETs, too many years. Too many times dragging herself down the same path for the same reasons. 

 

Frisk reaches up a gnarled hand and touches the RESET button for the last time.

 

“Wake up, dear, it’s time for breakfast.”

A familiar voice, sweet, soft, so welcoming.

A smile grows on Frisk’s face. 

Body young and limber, she swings her feet out of bed.


End file.
